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Stylized 3D character creation in Blender (2025)

Name: Stylized 3D character creation in Blender (2025)
Rating: 4.4 (59 reviews)

Master every step of stylized 3D character creation in Blender — from sculpting to final presentation.

Created byBevel Studio

Last updated 1/2026

English

English [Auto],

What you'll learn

Full 3D character creation pipeline
Learn finding and setting up reference images
Learn Blender's sculpting interface, brushes and shortcuts
Learn to sculpt a character
Learn about Retopology, set up the tools necessary for retopology and create a clean retopologized character mesh
Learn all about UVs, creating and editing UVs, Blender's toolset for working with UVs and create UV maps of your 3D character
Learn to create materials and textures, Paint textures by hand, Bake textures, Sculpt using Multires modifier and Bake Multires details
Learn the basics of skeleton (armature object), bones, Rigging and posing your character
Learn to create a scene, lighting and producing a final render

Course content

8 sections • 64 lectures • 13h 4m total length

Welcome to the course!4:27
Download and install Blender0:53
Download and install blender by visiting the blender download page, clicking the blue button, and selecting from experimental or previous versions for different operating systems before installation.
3D character creation steps5:02

Introduction to sculpting and sculpting tools in Blender6:16
Dynamic topology and Symmetry tools9:01
Quick overview of the sculpting toolset in Blender7:57
Most important sculpting brushes8:01
QUICK VIDEO Essential shortcuts for sculpting12:59
This lesson is a QUICK video lesson. These QUICK video lessons are recorded to teach you some important things that I might have missed in the main lessons of the course.

For example, here I will show and demonstrate most of the really important shortcuts for sculpting tools in Blender. I didn't show many of them during other lessons, so I included them as a QUICK video.
Creating character blockout9:40
Create the character blockout by exploring adult proportions and three blockout methods—poly modeling with a mirror modifier, sculpting with dynamic topology, and assembling simple primitives—using reference images.
Refining the shape and merging the parts15:29
Body sculpt guide11:41
Sculpting the body22:37
Sculpt the body in blender 4.5 using dynamic topology, prepare the mesh by fixing normals, applying transformations, and removing overlapping vertices, and keep reference images handy.
Modeling the hand6:12
Sculpting the head and face31:14
Sculpting the hand30:59
Refining, correcting and merging the parts14:00
Please download the Character Base Sculpt blend file to practice and to create your own character.

Retopology basics6:19
Head and face retopology27:03
Retopologize the head using a mirror modifier with clipping to ensure mirrored vertices meet cleanly, balancing low-poly regions with dense detail around eyes, mouth, ears, and joints.
Head and face retopology 2 (finish)15:45
Arm and hand retopology36:08
Retopology of the rest of the body26:05
Modeling the feet. Optimization and fixing issues10:28
Creating base clothes16:00
Modeling the shirt and adding details to clothes20:20
Creating inner mouth. Gums, teeth and tongue25:53
Modeling the hair using curves21:41

Introduction to UVs. Why we need UVs8:37
Explore how UV maps turn 3D surfaces into a 2D layout to accurately project textures in Blender, and why manual UV creation matters for stylized characters.
Creating UV maps9:52
Editing UV maps9:55
Learn to edit UV maps in Blender 4.5 by manipulating UV islands, avoiding overlaps, and packing a square texture map to maximize detail on the face while minimizing empty space.
Preparing our character model for UV unwrapping13:34
UV unwrapping our character model16:31
Editing and optimizing character UVs. Improving the eye15:29
QUICK VIDEO. Creating and unwrapping eyelashes3:18

Quick intro to shading and materials in Blender14:32
Introduction to Texture Painting in Blender7:22
Texture Painting brushes and their properties8:51
Using textures and masks in texture painting12:04
Painting and using black and white textures8:54
Paint and use black and white textures in Blender to control material values with grayscale, where white equals one and black equals zero, driving roughness and mix factors.
Baking textures9:12
Multiresolution modifier. Sculpting and baking small details9:05
Baking node setups4:56
Creating and baking Ambient Occlusion maps5:25
Creating and baking Curvature maps2:06
Texturing the character. Preparation5:55
Sculpting small details on the character using Multires modifier20:45
sculpt fine details with the multi-resolution modifier in blender and bake them to normal maps. enhance wrinkles on clothes, eyes, ears, and nails, then share your work on discord.
Baking mesh data (sculpted details and node setups) onto texture maps9:17
Bake sculpted details onto texture maps, including normal, ambient occlusion, and curvature maps, using multi-resolution baking and proper texture naming in Blender.
Painting the character's face texture13:59
Learn to paint a stylized character's face texture in Blender, building a color palette from reference images, applying highlights, shadows, freckles, lips, and eye details with masking and blur.
Creating materials for smaller parts of the character12:28
Painting the character's clothes10:33
Creating a fancy hair shader14:43
Enhancing and finalizing the materials for the character model7:32
Packing and Unpacking textures9:27

Basics of skeletal deformation and character posing9:08
Facial expressions with shape keys8:27
Creating a basic character rig with rigify12:39
Rigging the eyes, the hair and other parts10:16
Posing the character with the skeletal rig13:48
Posing and facial expressions with shape keys12:32
Creating the final pose12:47
Lighting and scene setup. Fixing some issues14:07
Setting up the camera and rendering6:28
Set up a camera, lock it to view, frame the vertical shot. Then adjust color management with Chronos PBR neutral, fine-tune exposure, boost samples for 1080 by 1920 vertical render.
Final touches9:10

Requirements

Basic experience in Blender is required (e.g. basic knowledge of modeling tools).
Blender 4.4 and above is preferred

Description

** This course is compatible with Blender 5 **

Welcome to our next course "Stylized 3D Character creation in Blender"

What you are going to learn:

In this hands-on Blender course, you’ll learn how to create a complete stylized 3D character— step by step, from the first concept to the final render.

You’ll discover the entire workflow used to create any humanoid character. We’ll start with setting up references and understanding the creative pipeline, then move on to sculpting, where you’ll learn essential tools, brushes, and techniques for building an appealing character sculpt.

Next, you’ll learn retopology, UV unwrapping, and texturing, gaining full control over your character’s topology and materials. You’ll bake details, paint textures, and create beautiful materials for the character.

Finally, you’ll rig, pose, light, and render your character for a presentation — ready for your portfolio, animation, or game projects.

While this course focuses on stylized characters, the techniques you’ll learn apply to realistic character creation too.

The unique advantages of our courses:

- No timelapses! (For some lessons, there is a Timelapse version, but you have the full version too!) Every lesson is shown in real time.
- Timestamps at the beginning of every single lesson. These will show you exactly how many distinc topics we cover in each lesson. Also, with timestamps, you can easily jumpt to a specific part of the lesson to learn faster and refresh easier.
- Questions or challenges at the end of every lesson to help you reflect what you learned, practice and grow.

Start now!

If you already know the basics of Blender and want to take your skills to the next level, this course is made for you.

Join now — and start creating your own professional 3D characters today!

Who this course is for:

Everyone who wants to create their own 3D characters
Experienced learners who want to dive into the world of character creation

Stylized 3D character creation in Blender (2025)

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Introduction3 lectures • 10min

Finding and setting up Reference images for viewing1 lecture • 6min

Sculpting. Blender's sculpting toolset and creating our character sculpt13 lectures • 3hr 6min

Retopology. Modeling the clean character mesh. Modeling clothes and hair10 lectures • 3hr 26min

UV Unwrapping7 lectures • 1hr 17min

Texturing and applying materials. Painting and baking textures19 lectures • 3hr 7min

Presentation. Rigging and posing the character. Lighting and rendering10 lectures • 1hr 49min

Bonus and next steps1 lecture • 2min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: